Namangan Center, Neighborhood Scan

Namangan Center, Neighborhood Scan

Namangan Center, Neighborhood Scan

Executive Summary

Setting the Context

Namangan sits in the foothills of Kyrgyzstan’s Tian Shan, and marks the edge of the Fergana Valley. It is the capital of Uzbekistan’s eastern Namangan Region. Historically a significant trade hub, today Namangan has an economy centered on agriculture, food processing and light industry. Recently, it has also included oil exploration and production. With a population of 678,000, Namangan is the second largest city in Uzbekistan. Over the past two decades it has grown at almost 3% annually, a fairly young population. Most economic activity are concentrated greatest in the city center.

Urban Cover Dynamics

Namangan’s built-up area expanded 70% between 1985 and 2015.Most of the land outside the built-up area is grassland, sparse vegetation, or cropland. Schools are well distributed throughout the area, even where population density is lower, as are health facilities, though to a lesser extent. Road connectivity is high in the populous south but not as high in the areas of higher economic activity.

Climate Conditions

Solar energy is very available in Goris, though seasonality is moderately high, meaning that it is less available in winter months. Air quality is poor, and is several times higher than the WHO recommended threshold. Surface temperatures are higher on the eastern hillsides, cooler on the more vegetated and forested western hillsides, and in between in the town itself.

Local Institutions and Planning

Namangan is a self-administered municipality in, and capital of, the Namangan Region. It is governed by a regionally appointed hokim (mayor), and a locally elected kengash (municipal assembly). Urban planning is centralized in Uzbekistan, with the Ministry of Construction responsible for land use planning, and three national entities responsible for sub-national master and development plans. Uzbekistan has a National Development Strategy for 2030. Namangan has a regional development strategy until 2030; its most recent master plan is form 2007.

Setting the Context

Basic City Information

Namangan is geographically situated at 41° 0′ 4″ N, 71° 40′ 6″ E, covers an area of 145 km², with a population of about 678 000 in 2023, making it the second-largest city in Uzbekistan. The city is bordered to the North by Tian Shan Mountain range and to the South by the Fergana Valley. Before 2005, the average annual increase in population was 2.5%, but has since risen to 2.9%.

Namangan is a significant hub of light industrial activities, including craft, trade, and food processing. Key industries are textiles, building materials, machinery, automotive repair, and chemical plants. However, most of the population engages in primary sector activities, including cotton, vegetables, cereals, livestock and oil production.

Namangan exhibits cold semi-arid climate conditions, with an average annual precipitation of 201 mm and an average temperature of 15 °C. The city has extreme temperature variability, with extreme cold winters (average of -2.3 °C) and hot summers (average of 26.3 °C).

The city is susceptible to many hazards, including flooding, droughts, earthquakes, and extreme temperatures. Also, the city elevations range from 620 to 820 meters with steep slopes, making it susceptible to landslides. With increasing urbanization, the exposure and vulnerability to disaster risk will likely intensify.

The black and yellow boundary marks the area of interest for the City Scan. Weather and Climate, N.D.; UNECE, 2017. Climate classification from Kottek et al’s 2006 Köppen-Geiger update.

The black and yellow boundary marks the area of interest for the City Scan.

The State of Urban Infrastructure and Service Delivery

Land Administration

Since gaining independence from Soviet rule, Uzbekistan has shifted towards private ownership of urban or non-agricultural land, with most land now held under different types of leaseholds. Housing, particularly in urban areas, is predominantly privately owned. The land administration system in Uzbekistan is a subject of ongoing reform, with initiatives aimed at improving the effectiveness of state ownership of land, the consolidation of agricultural land, and the development of an agricultural land market.

Energy

Since 2021, the Namangan region has been undergoing a significant transition in its energy sector, including the development of a large-scale solar project known as the Namangan Site Solar PV Park, spanning over 700 hectares. These initiatives form part of Uzbekistan’s broader energy sector reforms, aiming to shift from a government-owned and operated energy sector model to competitive markets in gas, oil, and electricity. .

Housing

The housing sector in Uzbekistan faces several challenges, including affordability, supply, and quality issues. According to the Asian Development Bank, much of the urban housing stock is aging and poorly maintained, with insufficient supply to meet the growing demand due to demographic growth and increasing rural to urban migration. State ownership of urban land has acted as a disincentive for the construction of additional housing units, resulting in a low yearly construction rate of 1.9 units per 1,000 people. Housing affordability compounds the problem, especially in Namangan, where GDP per capita lags behind the Uzbekistan average by 49%. Housing difficulties are especially pronounced in rural areas of Namangan, prompting targeted interventions through the government’s national affordable housing program. The government aims to increase the volume of housing construction by 1.5 times compared to the previous year.

Disaster Risk Management

Effective disaster risk management is critical in Uzbekistan, a region susceptible to various natural hazards, including flooding, earthquakes, drought, landslides and extreme heat. For example, over half of the population and economy are situated in areas highly susceptible to seismic activity, posing a significant threat to developmental gains and the livelihoods of communities in Uzbekistan. These risks are compounded by factors such as rapid urbanization, aging infrastructure, and population growth, intensifying overall exposure and vulnerability to disasters. Since 1997, the Government of Uzbekistan has made significant progress in disaster risk management, transitioning from a reactive approach focused on emergency responses to a proactive strategy aimed at mitigating disaster risks. In 2006, the Government of Uzbekistan adopted the State Program on Earthquake Risk Reduction, complemented by the 2011 Program on the Preparedness of the Population to Respond to Emergency Situations Caused by Earthquakes.

Drinking Water Supply

As of 2021, Namangan faced significant challenges with its drinking water supply and quality, with numerous households lacking connections to the centralized water supply system. In recent years, the government of Uzbekistan has partnered with a number of international financial institutions, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and European Investment Bank, which have committed more than USD 3 billion to the rehabilitation of water and wastewater infrastructure across the country. Moreover, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has recently provided funding for the construction of critical water infrastructure in seven rural settlements in the Namangan region, which is expected to increase the number of people connected to safe water by 280,000. Additionally, the Improvement of Water Supply in Yangikurgan District and the City of Namangan Project, launched in 2020 and spearheaded by the Uzbekistan Ministry of Housing and Communal Services, aims to replace and rebuild water supply infrastructure in these areas, benefiting approximately 185,000 people in these communities.

Urban Roads & Transport

Public transportation in Namangan primarily consists of buses, trams and shared taxis train connections, which are more biased towards major cities. To address this concern, a World Bank initiative has provided support to Almalyk, Bukhara, Namangan, Nukus, and Samarkand. The initiative focuses on improving public transport services, enhancing vehicle management and maintenance, introducing competitive bidding for bus route franchises, and planning urban transport systems. Consistent with the Namangan Regional Development Strategy (2022-2030), the city intends to invest in key transport infrastructure, with a particular emphasis on road and rail projects. However, despite Namangan’s expressed interest in developing green urban transport corridors (GUTC) and expanding the fleet of electric buses, no financial commitments have been made toward these initiatives.

Solid Waste Management

Solid Waste Management Strategy for the period 2019-2028 and Zero Waste principles, as outlined in a presidential decree issued on May 31, 2023 as some solid waste management strategies in Uzbekistan. Additionally, the Sustainable Solid Waste Management Project, funded by the Asian Development Bank, is working to strengthen institutional capacity for solid waste management. The project also focuses on raising public awareness and fostering community participation in waste reduction and recycling across cities and regions in Uzbekistan, including Namangan. As part of these efforts, Namangan has received additional waste collection vehicles, bins, and a modular service center for vehicle maintenance.

Local Administration

Uzbekistan operates as a unitary presidential republic, with a subnational two-tier system involving elected local councils and appointed local state executive governments. The outline of responsibilities for local state administration is specified in the 1993 Law on Local State Governments and the 1999 Law on Self-Government Bodies (revised in 2013). Under the administrative reforms initiated in 2004, many responsibilities were transferred to local authorities, such as environmental protection, cultural and historic preservation, urban development and the provision of utilities and other services, However, Uzbekistan is still characterized by a relatively high degree of centralization in decision-making.

Land Administration: UNECE, 2017; UNECE, 2017. Housing: UNECE, 2017. Energy: International Energy Agency, 2023; UNECE, 2017. Disaster Risk Management: UNDP, N.D.; Prevention Web, 2020. Water: UNECE, 2017. Roads and Transport: European Union, Council of Europe, N.D.; UNECE, 2017. Solid Waste Management: Asian Development Bank, 2019; UNECE, 2017. Local Administration: Asian Development Bank, 2019.

Urban Cover Dynamics

Land Cover

  • Built up class covers 58.6% of the total area in 2011, 57.5% in 2017, and 58% in 2023
  • Most of the city is concrete, with patches of trees in the cneter, dispersed patches of grassland across the city.
  • Between 2010 and 2019, most of the changes in built-up was loss (33.5%), and about half of that were built-up gains

Land cover refers to the ground surface cover, including vegetation, urban infrastructure, water, and bare soil, among other classifications. Identifying land cover type helps to understand land utilization and inform planning policies and programs.

© WorldView Images, 2011, 2017, and 2023. We acquired very high-resolution images from WoldView, and randomly generated and interpreted points in Google Earth Pro 7.3. The interpreted data have dates ranging from 2011, 2017, and 2023 and five urban cover classes, including built-up, bare soil, trees, grass/shrub, and water. The points were partitioned into 70% for training and 30% for validation of random forest classifier. Overall accuracy (OA) indicates the percent of the reference samples that are correctly mapped when compared to the total reference samples. OA was 87.15% in 2011, 86.75% in 2017, and 89.13% in 2023. Kappa measures the agreement between categorical variables in the predicted map and the reference map, with values ranging from -1 to 1. Negative values mean the classification is worse than randomly assigned values, 0 means, and random classification are similar, and values closer to 1 mean perfect classification. Thus, higher kappa coefficient values in land cover change classification are generally preferred to low values. The kappa coefficient in 2011 was 0.8178; in 2017, it was 0.8094; and in 2023, it was 0.8217.

Climate Conditions

Summer Surface Temperature

  • The temperature varies across urban cover classes with lowest in water and highest in bare soil each time step.
  • In built-up area, the mean temperature sightly increased from 44.5°C to 45°C.
  • In bare soil area, the mean temperature slightly decreased from 47.7°C to 47°C.
  • In tree cover, the mean temperature increased from 42.8°C to 43.9°C.
  • In grass/shrub, the mean temperature increased from 43.8°C to 44.2°C.
  • In water surfaces, the mean temperature increased from 40.1°C to 42.8°C.

Temperatures in an area are affected by many factors, such as land cover, elevation, slope, and proximity to water. Higher temperatures can generate or exacerbate negative effects related to health, social equity, and economic productivity. Typically, cities demonstrate higher temperatures than vegetated areas: construction materials, such as concrete, absorb more solar radiation; less vegetation results in less evapotranspiration; and more vehicle usage and mechanical cooling generate more heat. This map shows average surface temperatures from June through September, 2017–2021, at a 30-meter resolution. Note that it measures surface temperature rather than ambient temperature, which can differ by several degrees. Surface temperature is primarily useful for identifying hotter and cooler areas within a specific geography.

Landsat Level 2 Surface Temperature Science Product courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Land Cover and Temperature

Picking joint bandwidth of 1.05
Picking joint bandwidth of 1.05

  • The temperature varies across urban cover classes with lowest in water and highest in bare soil each time step.
  • In built-up area, the mean temperature sightly increased from 44.5°C to 45°C.
  • In bare soil area, the mean temperature slightly decreased from 47.7°C to 47°C. In tree cover, the mean temperature increased from 42.8°C to 43.9°C.
  • In grass/shrub, the mean temperature increased from 43.8°C to 44.2°C. In water surfaces, the mean temperature increased from 40.1°C to 42.8°C.

We randomly and manually selected points across and extracted the land cover and summer temperature for 2011, 2017, and 2023. The figure displays the relationship between land cover types and temperature in Namangan city center.

Urban Thermal Field Variance Index

  • In 2011, most 64% of the study area has UTFVI less than 0, decreased to 56% in 2017.
  • Thus, areas associated with urban heat island discomfort has increased since 2011.

Urban thermal field variance index (UTFVI) measures the strength of urban heat islands, with values of less than zero mean no UHI effect, and values greater than 0.020 mean the strongest UHI effect.The index also shows how (dis)comfortable an area is to increase in temperatures. The map shows average urban thermal field variance from June through September each for 2011, 2017, and 2023, at a 30-meter resolution. The UTFVI is primarily useful for identifying and grouping the extent of urban heat islands’ effects on (dis)comfort of specific areas.

Landsat Level 2 Surface Temperature Science Product courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Vegetated Areas

  • Typical of city centers, Namangan center has small amount of green spaces
  • The central areas of the city center have relatively more green spaces

This map displays the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, which ranges between -1 and 1, with higher numbers indicating a higher density of green vegetation. Values of less than 0.1 typically indicate water, rock, and otherwise barren land; values of 0.1 to 0.5 are associated with sparse vegetation, such as shrubs and grassland; and values of more than 0.5 correspond to dense vegetation such as forests or mature crops. Vegetation and green spaces in cities are associated with health benefits and the mitigation of environmental risks. More green space in a city can reduce temperatures and the urban heat island effect, lessen air pollution, and absorb floodwaters. Green spaces can also serve important civic, social, and quality of life functions.

© WorldView Image for 2017, “Normalized Difference Vegetation Index”. NDVI-based measures do not account for the proximity and spatial arrangement of green spaces within areal units. They also do not address the vertical dimension and density of green urban buildup.

Elevation

  • The elevation ranges from about 410 to 580 meters above sea level. The lower elevations are in the south eastern part of the city center, and the higher elevation in the north western
  • About half (50%) of the city center have elevation from 410 to 442 meters

Elevation informs an area’s vulnerability to many natural disasters. The height at which infrastructure, resources, and communities sit relative to normal water levels and tides, flood waters, and storm surges and waves informs their exposure. Elevation information is critical for communities to anticipate the impacts of disasters and to prepare resilient and cost-effective response and redevelopment strategies.

Map data from USGS, 2015, “USGS EROS Archive - Digital Elevation”.

Slope

  • Most of the built-up areas are concentrated slopes of grade between 0-10 degrees, representing 97.7% of the study area.
  • The north eastern parts of the city are a lot steeper than, and few places have slopes over 10°.

Slope refers to the percentage change in elevation over a certain distance. In hilly or mountainous areas, floods can occur within minutes after heavy rains, while in flat areas, floodwaters can remain for days. Considering the slope of land is important in reducing construction costs, extending services and public facilities, minimizing the risks of hazards like flooding and landslides, and mitigating the impacts of development on natural resources.

Map data from USGS, 2015, “USGS EROS Archive - Digital Elevation”.

Moisture

  • Due to built-up areas, most of the city center has low level of soil moisture, which indicates water stress
  • The soil surfaces and the north western part is drier than the central and eastern side

The Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) detects moisture content in vegetation, and is an indicator of water stress in crops. It is also used to identify vegetation in dry areas with an increased risk of combustion. This map computes NDMI for June 2017. NDMI measures soil moisture from a range of -1 to 1. Negative values indicates water stress, and positive values may indicate water-logging. The stresses introduced by low soil moisture are borne by agricultural crops and biodiversity. Increased depletion of soil moisture also leads to a higher risk of wildfire.

© World View Images for 2017